


Rat Ball

by whimseyrhodes



Category: Leverage
Genre: Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 10:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13245975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimseyrhodes/pseuds/whimseyrhodes
Summary: When things go missing, it's a different kind of thief that they discover.





	Rat Ball

**Author's Note:**

  * For [page_runner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/page_runner/gifts).



> So I Parkered this prompt from the 2017 Secret Santa, because there were so many I wanted to try! This is my first attempt at snark/humor.

“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot yelled from the kitchen, making the hacker jump, his hand twitching and nearly knocking his Jones Orange Soda off of the table. One miraculous save later, Hardison turned with a scowl on his own face toward the hitter, who was standing in the room with his hands on his hips, flour all over his apron and his hair in wild disarray that even the ever-present bandanna was apparently giving up on.

Hardison thought he smothered the snort quite graciously.

“What?” he asked innocently while biting his lip at the unknowingly hilarious yet infuriated hitter.

“What? What do you mean, _‘what’?”_ Eliot snapped. “You knew that I was going to make Braised Beef Tips tonight, so why did you throw the meat away?”

“Wait! Throw the mea…. Hell naw, I didn’t throw nothin’ away!” he protested.

“Then where the hell is it?” the hitter asked angrily. “I had it thawing in the sink and now it’s gone!”

“How’m I supposed to know, man?? You won’t let me into your ‘sacred space’!” Hardison came back, doing the finger quotes.

“Well it didn’t throw _itself_ in the garbage!”

“What’s in the garbage?” Parker asked, coming up behind Hardison with a bag of chips in her hand. He didn’t jump. He did not.

“Supper, Parker,” Eliot growled, his arms crossing his chest now. “Somehow, the beef tips I was going to make disappeared.”

“Oh.” She shrugged and shoved another chip into her mouth. “ ‘hen mak sommat’lse,” she garbled.

“Then make…. Fine. Something else,” the hitter muttered darkly, turning back into the kitchen while muttering dire threats under his breath.

Dinner turned out to be chicken empanadas instead, and both Hardison and Parker forgot all about the beef tips.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Two days later, Hardison was turning the apartment into a war zone when Eliot came back with groceries, including fresh beef that he promptly put into the fridge.

“What are you on now?” Eliot asked when the third bottle of soda rolled past his feet. Making like a soccer player, he toed under it and kicked it up into his hand.

“My coil of solder!” he said, his tall form folded into the ridiculously small space under his desk. “It was right on the corner there, and now it’s gone…I need it to finish…”

Eliot tuned out the lengthy explanation of circuits and techno-babble as he watched the hacker mutter, random items flying out from under the desk. A wire cutter, a roll of duct tape, a few cell phone sized motherboards, and egg beater….

Wait, what?

An egg beater?

“Hardison, why the hell is one of my egg beaters under that desk?”

Hardison’s head popped out on the other side of the desk, actually startling the other man. “Egg beater?”

“Yeah, _this_ thing!” Eliot brandished it so close to Hardison’s face that he went cross eyed.

“I dunno?”

“I’ve been looking for this for like a week!”

“Hey, man! I don’t even know what that’s for, why would I take it?”

Eliot just rolled his eyes and shook his head, dropping the beater into the sink to wash later while he put the rest of the groceries away.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Later that night as Parker curled up on the couch with her locks, the boys decided to play a game of pool. Eliot racked the balls, frowning a little when they tried to roll to the side twice.

“Hardison, your table is a half bubble off center.” 

Hardison was bending over the cue ball, lining up his shot, and looked up at the hitter. “Naw, man, I just leveled it a coupla weeks ago.”

Eliot shrugged, satisfied that the balls were staying in their places at the moment. He waited hip shot at the end of the table with the butt of his cue stick braced on the floor as he waited for the hacker to take his shot.

The white ball smacked into the triangle of balls and sent them rolling in all directions, none of them making their way into a pocket. Eliot grinned as Hardison groaned.

“My pick,” the hitter said, stepping to the table and leaning down, the tip of the stick aimed unerringly at the cue ball. He had his eye on stripes tonight.

A decisive snap of his arm and the orange thirteen went sailing into the corner pocket where he’d pointed.

And then came back up.

Eliot stood straight up and looked blankly at the ball now rolling _away_ from the corner.

“Whaaa…..?” Hardison muttered, his eyes fixed on the corner as well.

Eliot broke out of the trance and walked over to the corner of the table, bending down to peer into the hole. Not seeing anything, he grabbed the thirteen ball and dropped it down the hole. It didn’t come back up, so he stood, satisfied, though still confused.

Only to see the thirteen ball pop up out of the side pocket.

“What the hell!!?” Hardison jumped this time, freaked out.

“Codo!” Parker admonished the table, walking up to it with her hands on her hips and a frown on her face.

 _“Codo?”_ Hardison squeaked, eyes wide as he regarded the thief. “What is that, some kind of de-possessifying spell or somethin’?”

This time Parker gave him a squinty eyed look of confusion.

“ ‘Cause _obviously_ our pool table is _haunted_ , woman!”

She giggled and stretched her narrow hand into the corner pocket. “No, it’s not,” she said, and Eliot could hear her fingers tapping the inside of the tunnel.

Something lithe, dark and furry swarmed up her arm and onto her shoulder, ducking under her hair.

“Parker! What! What…! _What!_ Is that _thing!”_

“Him?” Parker plucked said fur out of her hair, holding it out toward the hacker. It’s whiskers quivered in the air as it sniffed at Hardison.

“What is that? A rat?” he asked again.

“No! He’s a ferret! And they’re mine!”

“There’s _more??”_

“Just Podo,” she said serenely, pulling the fur-covered animal back to her chest. Her hair quivered and another pointy nosed face poked out from under her golden tresses. “See?”

“Parker…” Eliot started to growl before she turned to him. And turned on the puppy-dog eyes. He caved.

“Just…keep them out of the…” he started, then a revelation hit him. “Are they the thieves??”

“What thieves?” Parker asked, trying to look innocent but ending up looking mildly constipated instead.

This time Eliot did growl. “My egg-beater, _the sirloin tips!”_

“My solder!” Hardison piped up. “They _are_ thieves!” he accused.

Parker shrugged. _“I’m_ a thief,” she said, looking back and forth between the two men. “Fine,” she huffed.

Spinning around, she stalked to the bedroom and they followed. Into the closet and behind one of Hardison’s boxes they found the ferret’s nest, where one chopstick, a teaspoon, and solder were, as well as some loose diamonds, a golden tennis bracelet, one of Eliot’s bandannas, and various computer chips.

Eliot’s hand snatched his bandanna back. “That’s where it went!” he exclaimed.

“What…?” Hardison said as he peered back, reaching out and taking the chips. “I didn’t even notice these were gone.”

“Friggin’ magpies,” Eliot muttered, stuffing the bandanna into his back pocket.

“They’re not birds, they’re _ferrets!_ And they're _mine!"_

Parker stood with a ferret dangling from each hand as they turned around. “And they go get things I can’t.”

“They…what?” Hardison asked curiously, and even Eliot tilted his head.

“Yeah. That last job? With Emmerson Accounting?” she asked. “I couldn’t get to the stick thingy before he came into the office, so I sent Podo in. Emmerson didn’t even see him.”

“That’s how you got out without them catching you,” Hardison said, fitting the pieces to another puzzle together. “They were in the office for five minutes before you said you had the USB.”

“What about the Waterston Job?” Eliot asked. “The ring?”

“Codo,” she admitted. “The laser grid was just too tight for me. But he fit.”

“Huh,” the two men said together, looking at each other.

Hardison laughed as Parker jumped up and down excitedly when Eliot said, “Well, I guess Leverage International has five members again.”

**Author's Note:**

> My friends and I actually had a game we called 'Rat Ball', and we played it just like Hardison and Eliot's game. The table was just a little off kilter and a friend had a fetter who liked to play in it. So we'd make bets on which pocket Annie would push the ball out of.
> 
> Dedicated to Annie, the little fluffer who could.


End file.
